The present invention relates to granular conveyors and auger systems for conveying granular materials. In particular, the present invention relates to a granular conveying auger system having a perforated center tube for filtering fine particles from the granular materials while conveying the granular materials.
Granular materials include a wide range and variety of small particles or pellets such as grains, animal feeds, chemical fertilizers and the like. During the processing or harvesting of such granular materials, the granular materials often become contaminated with foreign particles.
A typical example of such contamination occurs with the harvesting, storing and transport of grains such as corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. During harvest of these grains, the grains often become contaminated with foreign material including chaff, dirt and dust, insects and weed seed. Because of imperfect storing and transportation conditions, the grain is further contaminated by mold and fungus. As a result, this contamination lowers the overall purity and quality of the harvested grain.
Because many of the uses and processes involving granular material require relatively pure, high quality granular material, the foreign material and contaminates must be separated and removed. Typically, such a process involves transferring or conveying the granular material to a cleaning facility, washing the granular material or moving the granular material back and forth across a screen or filter and then conveying the granular material to a storage or processing location. This cleaning step requires additional equipment and space. The cleaning and purification of the granular material further delays the final end use of the granular material. As a result, removing the foreign material from the granular material is both time consuming and expensive.
In other cases, the preparation of animal feeds and food stuffs involves the grinding of grains and other granular materials into fine particles which are then used as part of a final end product. Similar to the purification process, grinding the granular material, filtering the fine particles from the granular material, and conveying the granular material and the fine particles to and from a separate site in separate steps requires additional capital equipment and time. Consequently, these filtering or separation processes are also time consuming and expensive.